If you drive I20 west through Dallas and on toward Midland and Odessa, you will come to the Permian Basin. From there to I20’s merge with I10, the air will smell like a can of motor oil much of the time and at night the land will extend to the horizon with mercury vapor lights of pump jacks every few hundred yards.

Of course it’s West Texas and not many people go out that way - it’s the road from Atlanta to El Paso - making it out of sight; out of mind.

And if you take I10 west out of New Orleans, after the refineries of Louisiana, you will see refineries from the border to Houston and Port Arthur. Open your mouth and you might just taste the air.

The post colonial history of Texas is people arriving to extract its resources. The oil may just be chance. The roughnecks and their oil pumps are deliberate.